- New Year's will be here before you know it so
we're talkin' seven New Year's resolutions
for entrepreneurs here on The Journey.
♪ It's the most wonderful time-- ♪
- Alex, we're back.
- Oh yeah, okay.
Well, we're talkin' New Year's resolutions
so it's time to hit reset on not just you,
but your business.
- Yeah and now's the time to basically evaluate
your last year of business
and set some goals to improve the next year.
- If you're havin' a hard time figuring out
which resolutions you wanna take on,
that's what we're here for.
We're gonna help you out with some of
our seven best resolutions that you could implement.
- Starting with one of the more important ones I think
that everyone should do is pay yourself a salary.
Sometimes we forget about it.
We're constantly paying our employees or
just random just expenses that we have.
We forget that, hey, we need to make money too.
We don't wanna just scrape whatever there is
at the very end.
And setting a goal of paying yourself a salary
does a couple things for you.
One, you get paid and two it helps put you in
the mindset of how much extra you need to make
per month or per year to ensure that
your salary is paid.
- Our next resolution is to hire help.
I know for me I have a really difficult time
really delegating out different responsibilities.
I feel the need to take on everything myself
to make sure it's perfect. - Right.
Only we can make it perfect.
- Yeah, we're all perfectionists here.
So it's really important to hire help 'cause it
may seem like oh no I'm losing revenue
by paying someone else,
but it's actually the first step
to increasing your revenue.
- Yeah, I know I struggle with this, that delegation,
and really having someone else do your work
is tough to just, just start, right?
We know our business like the back of our hand.
We know how it's supposed to be done,
but I know first hand that outsourcing some
of that work and delegating some of that work
to employees or contractors really just goes
the extra mile.
And I've started doin' that with my web design business
where if it's not such a heavy task or
needs my full attention,
I'll go on sites like Upwork and hire out people
to essentially do those tasks for me.
And like you said, you might think you're gonna be
losing money, but it's given me so much more time
to go out and find more work and
make more money and continue to just hire
other people to help you then turn and
get more business, get more time,
and you're growing and it just, it all works out.
Now our next resolution that you should set this year
is to not work on vacation.
I know that I'm guilty of doing that.
My days off or my times where I go on a trip
with family or whatever it looks like,
I'm usually checking email maybe doing some random work
when I have free time and it doesn't end up being free time.
So set aside some time to actually have a vacation.
Where are you going on vacation next year?
- I'm actually going to Cancun
here in just a little bit - Whoa.
- And I am definitely not gonna bring work with me.
It's all about setting
those boundaries. - Right.
- You wouldn't want to work for a boss that
wouldn't allow you to focus on your vacation
so don't do that to yourself.
And speaking of not working, that brings us to
our next resolution.
Don't work on the weekends.
It's really critical to your mental health, you know,
to give yourself that break.
It's called a work week for a reason.
Take those couple days to really recharge,
reset your mind, and get ready for the next week.
- Yeah, you're not wrong.
I know we all get just stuck on that trap of
I got so much work I have to do so
I have to basically use all my time to work.
Those Saturdays and Sundays are your time to
just reset and relax.
And you'll actually find that you're gonna be
more productive during that Monday through Friday
'cause you give yourself that rest and
you set a timeline of when you can work.
What is it like, Parkinson's law?
The amount of time you give yourself will
basically fill that up.
So I know back in high school or in college,
when I had a paper due that was due in say three weeks,
it would take me three weeks to do that paper.
Or if I have a project with my clients that
takes eight weeks, it's gonna take eight weeks for
me to finish it because I've given myself that time.
And now if I say I'm gonna work seven days a week Saturday
to Sunday, it's gonna take me all that time to
get a project done that probably would have happened
if I said cool Monday through Friday,
that's when I'm working and then it's done.
- So again, it's all about setting those boundaries.
And if you're work week is a little bit different,
more unique and you have to work on weekends
or you're business is open on weekends,
you can either delegate and have other people work
on those weekends or you can always just take a
Monday and Tuesday and consider that to be your weekend.
- Right, and the more you relay that to your clients,
your customers, the more they're gonna
respect your time because we're all human,
we don't expect everyone to work all the time
and you set those boundaries with your clients,
your customers that hey Monday through Friday or
Tuesday through Saturday, whenever your hours are,
you're gonna try to keep it within that,
because they're not gonna want to be bothered
on their weekend.
- I strongly believe that everyone needs at
least one lazy day a week, so.
- At least.
- Take your lazy day.
- The next resolution we have for you
is stick to processes.
We have processes in our business for a reason.
Such as onboarding a new client, you have to go through
A, B, and C before they're onboarded.
But sometimes when things are urgent,
we try to cut corners and that
whole onboarding experience that you might have
may be smooshed down to a few days versus
the week it was.
Whatever your process is, you need to make sure
you stick to it to ensure that
there's consistency across the board.
- Yeah, trust the process.
And here's a quick New Year's tip,
outline those processes in a document
or, you know, a manual.
So that way it's written down, you can share that
with all of your, you know, teammates, your employees,
and that way it really holds you accountable.
- Looking back on this year, have you taken on
a few projects that you wasn't really in
you wheelhouse, but you kinda did because you
might have needed the business or
someone asked you to.
Well, this New Year's resolution is to
refer away leads that are just not for you.
If it's not your services, not your business,
really create a network of like-minded people
that you can refer that away to,
maybe get a kick back in.
I know when I do my web design and someone needs a logo,
now I can probably make a logo,
but it's gonna take me a ton of time,
it's not really what's gonna be best for them.
I refer to my friend Anthony and
he gets the service, I get a bit of a kick back
for referring him and everyone's the wiser.
But the more you refer away the leads that
don't work for you, the more that you have time
to focus on the stuff that is right for you
and really grow your business this year.
- Yeah and I'm sure they'll appreciate that
reference so, you know, whenever it comes along
that they find a client that would be a great fit for you
they will return the favor.
- And they have many times.
- And our seventh resolution is pretty obvious,
but it's definitely worth mentioning.
Be profitable.
- Yeah, and I think this is something to go oh
of course I want to be profitable right?
I'm running a business.
But really it's just a mindset shift
that you want to have going into the year.
You wanna have that mindset I'm going to be profitable
or really speak into existence, make it a reality
and keep that on your mind and keep focused.
Because this is your year.
You have these resolutions,
you have this business,
you have everything that it takes.
Now it's just time to get that mindset right.
Be profitable.
- Hey and here's a quick bonus tip.
- All right.
- You don't have to wait until the end of
the year to start these resolutions.
You could literally start them today.
- Yeah, there is no better time like the present.
So start these resolutions right now
whether you are watching this on January first
New Year's day or it's June
and you've somehow got on this video.
Whatever it is, start these resolutions right now.
- Get on it and make sure you also like, comment,
and subscribe to our channel while you're at it.
- Yeah and ring that bell, see these episodes first.
This is the journey.
We'll see you next time.